They aim to end poverty by improving health and education, reducing inequality and spurring economic growth, while tackling climate change.

The WHO collects statistics every year to monitor the global population’s health.

Between 2000 and 2006, life expectancy in low-income countries rose by 21%.

This is compared to a 4%, or three year, increase in richer nations.

As well as better treatment for infections like HIV, improvements to maternal and infant healthcare halved child mortality between 2000 and 2018.

Progress had been stalling, however, which may be made worse by the coronavirus.

Immunisation coverage has barely increased in recent years, leading to fears gains in the fight against malaria may be reversed.

Statistics show only a third to half of the world’s population was able to access essential healthcare in 2017.

In more than four out of 10 (40%) countries, there are fewer than 10 doctors per 10,000 people.

Over half (55%) of nations also have fewer than 40 nurses and midwifes per 10,000 people.

This has partly been put down to an inability to pay for healthcare.

The WHO estimates that in 2020, around 1 billion people (almost 13% of the global population) will spend at least 10% of their household budget on healthcare. Most of these live in lower middle-income countries.

There is also an overall shortage of services to prevent and treat non-infectious diseases like cancer, diabetes and stroke.

In 2016, seven in 10 (70%) of all deaths worldwide were linked to conditions like these, with most (85%) occurring in low and middle-income countries.

The issue of poor sanitation is particularly timely given the coronavirus outbreak.

In 2017, more than half (55%) of the global population is thought to have lacked access to safely-managed sanitation services.

Nearly a third (29%) did not have access to drinking water.

That same year, two in five households (40%) did not have soap or water.

“The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need to protect people from health emergencies, as well as to promote universal health coverage and healthier populations to keep people from needing health services through multi-secotral interventions like improving basic hygiene and sanitation,” said Dr Samira Asma, assistant director general at the WHO.

“The message from this report is clear: As the world battles the most serious pandemic in 100 years, just a decade away from the SDG deadline, we must act together to strengthen primary healthcare and focus on the most vulnerable among us in order to eliminate the gross inequalities that dictate who lives a long, healthy life and who doesn’t.”

An 100-year-old woman is discharged from a hospital in Moscow after beating the coronavirus. (Getty Images)

What is the coronavirus?

The coronavirus is one of seven strains of a virus class that are known to infect humans.

Others cause everything from the common cold to severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), which killed 774 people during its 2002/3 outbreak.